Amazon Prime Day orders eclipse Black Friday

Amazon has claimed a victory today for its inaugural Prime Day shopping event.

The company has said that Prime Day peak order rates have already surpassed that of Black Friday last year, seemingly validating the company’s move to launch a retail extravaganza that was touted to offer “more deals than Black Friday”.

The online retail giant gave some details into the purchases Prime members have made so far:

Prime members have bought tens of thousands of Fire TV Sticks, 35,000 Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray sets, 28,000 Rubbermaid sets, and 4,000 Echos in 15 minutes. The Kate Spade purse was gone in less than a minute. The 1.2K of $999 TVs sold out in less than 10 minutes.

No figures, however, have been given on the total volume of purchases shoppers have made during Prime Day. Last year, the company said that around 64 items were sold every second during Black Friday for its UK site. It would fall short of its Cyber Monday record, however: Amazon is said to have sold more than 426 items per second during the follow-up to Black Friday.

The day hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the company. They have had to endure negative feedback on Twitter over their Prime Day deals, and other retail competitors such as Walmart have not yet announced their own figures in their own rival day of sales.

Cyber Monday sales pass $2 billion in biggest e-commerce day ever

E-commerce sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving hit $2.04 billion, up 17% compared to a year ago, according to analytics firm comScore, making it the biggest online shopping day ever, and the first to surpass $2 billion in sales. For the full five-day period, sales rose 24%, and e-commerce sales so far are running ahead of forecasts.

“Any notion that Cyber Monday is declining in importance is really unfounded, as it continues to post new historical highs and reflects the ongoing strength of online this holiday season,” said comScore Chairman Emeritus Gian Fulgoni.

The numbers come as a welcome tonic for retailers after the National Retail Federation estimated that sales, both online and in stores, over the Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend were a bust.

Wal-Mart Stores WMT, for one, said it had its biggest e-commerce day ever on Monday, though it didn’t quantify that success. Wal-Mart and other retailers, including Target TGT and J.C. Penney JCP, have invested heavily in their e-commerce firepower to fight back against online shopping leader Amazon.com AMZN this holiday season.

Wal-Mart had record-breaking Cyber Monday

Wal-Mart said this year’s “Cyber Monday” saw the most online orders in a single day in the retailer behemoth’s history, with a bulk of traffic in the early days of the holiday season derived from mobile devices.

The retailer said customers viewed more than 1.5 billion pages on Walmart.com between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday — an industry term for the Monday that comes after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Mobile accounted for about 70% of the traffic over that five-day period, Wal-Mart WMT said.

Though the numbers look rosy, Wal-Mart didn’t provide any sales specific data. And while shoppers appeared to give retailers a lift on Monday with online sales rising 8.1% over last year’s numbers according to preliminary data from IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark, the increase wasn’t as strong as expected.

Reuters noted that observers had projected an increase between 13% to 15%. The growth also trails what was reported last year, when observers estimated that Cyber Monday sale rose as high as 21%.

Wal-Mart is trying to milk the Cyber Monday lingo for as long as possible. The retailer is calling this week “Cyber Week,” touting a handful of tech gadget promotions that will run for several days. That highlights what observers have noted this year: with deals spread across a longer stretch of time, the significance of sales on any one single day could be diminishing.

Auto sales, and backing down in Hong Kong — 5 things to know today

Finish all your holiday shopping yet? Don’t feel bad if you haven’t — retail sales data suggest you aren’t the only one holding out for better deals. But while Thanksgiving weekend sales disappointed observers, Cyber Monday’s performance looked a bit better. Meanwhile, protests in Hong Kong could potentially wind down after leaders of the pro-democracy campaign told students it’s time to retreat after thousands clashed with police earlier this week. Auto sales are also in the news today, with major manufacturers — including General Motors GM and Ford F — set to report their November sales figures. And opening statements are set to begin in a digital music class action case involving Apple AAPL that could cost the tech giant around $1 billion if it loses.

Here’s what else you need to know about.

1. The end of the Hong Kong protests?

Three co-founders of a pro-democracy campaign in Hong Kong have reportedly told protesting students that it’s time to retreat, expressing concern that the students’ protest camps faced too many dangers of worsening violence. This comes after thousands of protestors clashed with police earlier this week at the demonstration’s main encampment, where police in riot gear fought protestors with the use of batons and pepper spray. The protestors have been calling for free elections in Hong Kong.

2. Auto industry should see a Black Friday bounce

Automakers report November sales on Tuesday and are projected to deliver a 1.6% increase from the same period a year ago, according to industry observer Edmunds.com. Sales get a lift from the Black Friday weekend, in part due to efforts by car dealers in recent years to use the holiday as an opportunity to drive traffic to their showrooms. While analysts say Black Friday isn’t as important as the Memorial Day or Labor Day holidays, it is quickly becoming one of the bigger weekends of the year for dealers.

3. Avanir Pharmaceuticals agrees to $3.5 billion takeover

California-based Avanir AVNRagreed to be acquired by Japanese drug maker Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., a deal that has been approved by boards of directors of both companies. Avanir, which develops treatments for central nervous system disorders, has one approved treatment, Nuedexta, and several other treatments in various stages of clinical trials. The company reported $75.4 million in total revenue last year.

4. Global stock markets recover

Stock markets are recovering Tuesday, Reuters reports, as key emerging market currencies including the Russian double stabilized against the dollar. Oil’s sharp decline has caused some concern in markets that are heavily exposed to the commodity, but Reuters says observers found some solace in commentary from U.S. policymakers and the head of the International Monetary Fund that assert lower fuel costs would boost the world economy.

5. Cyber Monday deals lure consumers

Online sales for the Monday following the Thanksgiving weekend, now known as “Cyber Monday,” rose 8.1% over last year’s numbers according to preliminary data. That sales growth is crucial for the industry, especially after the National Retail Federation’s announcement that overall retail sales slipped 11% over the four-day holiday weekend. Wal-Mart WMT has said that this year’s Cyber Monday was “the biggest online day in its history for orders,” and said it saw more than 1.5 billion page views between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

Online shoppers give Cyber Monday a lift

The Thanksgiving-Black Friday holiday weekend may have been a disappointment for retailers, but maybe shoppers were just waiting to buy everything online?

Online sales today, known as Cyber Monday, jumped 8.1% over last year’s numbers, according to preliminary data from IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark. The bump, as of 6 pm ET, follows the National Retail Federation’s announcement that overall retail sales fell 11% over the four-day holiday weekend, suggesting that some shoppers decided to stock up on holiday deals from the comfort of their computers and mobile devices rather than brave a mob scene at stores over the weekend.

IBM IBM previously reported that online sales over the weekend were up 17% over last year.

Cyber Monday, a marketing gimmick pushed by the e-commerce industry, marks the unofficial kick off the busy holiday online shopping season. Many online retailers including the digital operations of big bricks and mortar stores try to entice shoppers by offering discounts.

Despite the buzz, Cyber Monday isn’t actually the busiest day for holiday shopping. That generally comes later in the season, when shipping deadlines for Christmas are looming.

On Monday, shoppers seemed especially keen to scan for sales on their smartphones and tablets, as IBM reported that mobile sales accounted for 20.4% of total online sales on Monday — an increase of 30.1% over last year.

Interestingly, IBM’s analytics show that smartphone users accounted for more online traffic than tablets — 27.9% of the total, for smartphones, compared with 10.1% for tablets — but, consumers mostly used their smartphones for browsing, not purchasing. Tablets accounted for 11% of all online sales on Cyber Monday, while smartphones made up just 9.3%.

What’s more, users of Apple AAPL products did more shopping on Monday than Android users. Sales made via Apple devices accounted for 15.8% of total online sales today, compared to Android users accounting for 4.4% of sales.

From the archives: Holiday shopping in 1930 looked a lot like today

Holiday shopping has been an all-American tradition since about the end of the 19th century. The exact start is difficult to pin down, but generally followed the rise of store-sponsored Thanksgiving parades. The moment Santa Claus came gliding down the street was the official beginning of the holiday shopping season.

The most famous parade still graces televisions nationwide: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It started in 1924, not long before the nation’s deepest and longest-lasting depression.

The market crashed on Oct. 28, 1929–what would come to be called Black Monday. The shopping season was only weeks away and no one was yet aware that the U.S. was sliding into the Great Depression, as Fortune chronicled.

Even in the mad winter of 1929, above the dying bellows of the Bull Market, could be heard sleigh bells and the quaintly anachronistic “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.” Santa Claus managed by his very madness to divert attention from the carnage in Wall Street for a little while, and by that much enabled the U. S. citizen to throw up philosophical bulwarks against the the bad times that were advancing on him.

Retail wouldn’t feel the full effects of the market crash until the following year, 1930.

But any department store manager who thought that he had already weathered the storm soon found the seriousness of his miscalculation. Unemployment first, and then curtailment of pay rolls during the months that followed, slowly but surely reacted upon his trade. The graph of his sales, unless his store was in a singularly fortunate bailiwick, gradually dropped downward. Not even normal seasonal upward movements were followed. In August, sales were off 9 per cent from 1929’s August record, and the average for the year’s first seven months (despite, on the whole, remarkable steadiness during the late winter period) was off 6 per cent. Thus did the department store, always a laggard in reflecting business conditions, at length show what had already been shown in other divisions of business and trade.

The solution? More spending, according to businessmen and economists.

The needed thing, all agreed, was an acceleration of spending. An increase of $267,000,000 in savings deposits throughout the U. S. between June 30, 1929-June 30, 1930 indicated that even with lessened income people were setting aside greater liquid reserves—a hesitancy to spend which accelerated the forces making for reduced business activity. If these reserves could be released, if goods could be started moving at a more rapid rate, if shelves could be depleted, then the wheels of production could be started revolving, idle men and idle capital put to work, and the tide turned. Philadelphia began a determined “Buy Now” campaign and exhorted the rest of Pennsylvania to follow suit so that that state could come out of the slump first.

The storyline sounds familiar to the more recent Great Recession, though the consumption numbers 84 years ago paled compared to today. Shoppers were expected to snap up $6 billion worth of goods–$17.3 billion in today’s dollars. That’s a fraction of the nearly $617 billion American buyers will spend this year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Nevertheless, some things don’t change all that much, especially an American tradition like the Macy’s parade.

Each year in Manhattan, R. H. Macy & Co. does him honor with a parade of Gargantuan balloons, designed by Tony Sarg and constructed by Goodyear. The parade comes down Broadway on Thanksgiving Day, and in 1929 consisted of ten balloons representing the Katzenjammer family of comic supplement fame, plus a dragon 177 feet long, a dog, a turkey, and a horse and rider. All of the balloons with the exception of the dog were inflated with helium (of which gas R. H. Macy & Co., by virtue of this annual parade, is the largest commercial user in the U. S. except for companies actually operating airships) and were released after their march at the entrance of Macy’s store. To each was attached an offer of $100 reward for return.

More shoppers skip the mall to buy cars on Black Friday

With bellies full of turkey and hearts full of mirth, millions of Americans will head to the mall this extended weekend — to buy Ugg Boots, Xboxes and Frozen dolls for themselves and for loved ones.

Increasingly, another industry is cashing in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and it’s not one you usually associate with teeming crowds and slashed prices — autos.

Car shoppers are visiting car dealers in greater numbers around the Thanksgiving holiday. Alex Gutierrez, an analyst at Kelly Blue Book, said that while Black Friday hasn’t yet reached the level of Memorial Day or Labor Day for car sales, it’s quickly becoming one of the bigger weekends of the year for dealers.

Granted, the deals offered on car lots aren’t always short-term, he noted. Many manufacturers are “running their Black Friday specials throughout the month of December,” he said.

So what is driving this increase in Black Friday car shopping? Some of it, surely, is just the growing focus on the weekend as a time for all things consumerist, with cars dragged along for the ride. Gutierrez also notes that for the past year or so, the auto industry has been recovering from a historic low point that came during 2009 and 2010 in the aftermath of the credit crisis.

The other thing driving auto sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is the increasing importance of online shopping to the car buying process. Dealer.com, a Dealertrack TRAK company that sells shopping tools to auto dealers, saw a 7% increase in the total traffic during the two weeks leading up to Black Friday in 2013 compared to 2012.

“We are seeing a major surge in traffic, and we saw it last year too,” said Dave Winslow, Dealertrack’s vice president of digital strategy. Winslow pointed out that, with customers going online to shop, it doesn’t really matter if they are actually heading to the lots this weekend, because most of the decision-making happens before they actually go to buy a car.

One online auto company is taking things a step further in its appeals to Black Friday shoppers by offering a flat discount of $1,000 on all cars. That would be Carvana, a startup that calls itself the “Amazon of cars,” in that the cars — all used — are sold entirely online, including financing, and delivered the next day with no test drive. (The company does offer a no questions asked, full refund return within seven days of delivery.) Carvana currently operates in Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte.

Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia stressed that Carvana wasn’t raising prices for two weeks before Black Friday and then cutting prices back down to what they were originally. With so many of their competitors taking that tack, Garcia said the company was stressing the promotion too much.

“Every automotive retailer out there is going to have some crazy Black Friday thing,” he said. “That’s because they’re playing games. That’s really hard for us to really get through to customers.”

Is Black Friday really a great time to buy a car? Larry Dominique, an executive vice president at Truecar TRUE, a service that tracks car prices, said that while it may be a good time, but shoppers can do even better.

He said that while discounts are very good on Black Friday, they actually improve at the end of the month. This is because car makers and dealers are looking to move as many vehicles off the lot as possible before the end of the year — manufacturers so they can report the best yearly sales they can, and dealers to reach the sales goals set by the manufacturers.

Shopping online at work? More employers look the other way

Braving the local mall this weekend may appeal to fewer shoppers this year than last, but online stores expect a cheery Cyber Monday. With total holiday sales forecast at $617 billion, up about 4% over last year, online shopping will jump 16%, according to the National Federation of Retailers—and more of those online shoppers will be sitting at their desks, especially if they work at tech companies.

The number of companies allowing “unrestricted access” to non-work sites has leapt 17 percentage points in just the past two years, says a new survey from staffing firm Robert Half Technology, and fewer employers bother monitoring for “excessive” web surfing. Altogether, about two-thirds (69%) have given up trying to keep people from shopping at work.

That’s not to say that the IT department is always thrilled with it. “There’s still a higher risk of corrupting the network when you have large numbers of employees visiting a lot of outside sites,” notes John Reed, RHT’s senior executive director. “But, even so, there’s more upside to allowing it than to trying to lock it down.”

One reason is that people bent on, say, the latest Disney “Frozen” doll or an Xbox One are nothing if not determined. “So it’s either a three-hour lunch for a trip to the mall, or 10 minutes online at their work stations,” observes Reed. The rise of BYOD (bring your own device) policies in most workplaces plays a part, too. “From a productivity standpoint, you gain nothing by blocking retail sites,” Reed says. “People will just use their own iPads.”

A subtler reason for turning a blind eye to online shopping is that “employees want control over their own time,” Reed notes. “So employers are trying harder to be flexible. They’re looking for any edge that will keep talent, especially tech talent, from taking a phone call from a recruiter.”

Besides, it’s tough to tell people they can’t shop online during work hours when they see their bosses doing it. More than half (53%) of senior managers—defined as “C-suite executives, vice presidents, directors, managers, and supervisors” —admit they’ll use company time to go cyber-shopping, says CareerBuilder’s 2014 Cyber Monday survey, versus 46% of professional and entry-level staffers who say the same.

If gift-buying online at the office looks like a major distraction, consider the following: It could help people focus on their work by serving as a seasonal stress reliever. A 2013 poll by the National Federation of Retailers found that 46% of women, and 78% of men, ranked in-person shopping—and battling the holiday crowds—as “more stressful than a trip to the DMV.”